Beneath the Venomous Hall lie the Hematite Mines – source iron ore for the dwarves who helped to equip armies to fight in the war against the elves. Also known as the East Mines, these passages link to Venomous Hall via the stairs at the lower left, to the West Mines on the left and to both the Giant Citadel and the secret dwarven camp to the right. Finally, a small 6 to 8 foot wide natural chimney descends from the lowest point in the Mushroom Cavern to the sump room in the lower right side of the map (indicated by a small dashed circle).

This map is drawn at a larger scale than most of the recent maps – 1 square is 20 feet, like the maps of the Lost River Cave or the Mushroom Cavern. The dotted lines that lead to the deep crevasse (the same crevasse from the Marble Hall and the Venomous Hall) are small airways that were added to provide fresh air to the dwarves working down here. Now that the crevasse is home to the malevolent Gimchak Spiders, they use the airways to send scouts into the mines – watching to be sure that they will not be disturbed by the return of dwarven industry, or at least that they will be warned before it becomes so prevalent that it affects their society.

We’ll return to the mines on Friday with the West Mines and then probably again on Monday with the Flooded Mines.